A casual approach to testing quant trading strategies using good-enough data, AI-generated code snippets, and gut feel for alpha. Less CFA rigor, more “let’s plug it into ChatGPT and see what 15-minute candles say.” Used early on to vibe-check ideas without investing in robust infrastructure or precise modeling.
Crypto Bro: “Yo I got this strategy that longs ETH whenever gas fees drop below median levels.”
Startup Quant: “Nice. You test it?”
Crypto Bro: “Yeah, did a little vibe backtesting on it — used some synthetic data and GPT to throw together a pandas loop. Looks promising.”
when you're holding up your phone and making faces at it, as though you are taking a selfie, but you're really taking a picture of the person across from you or the wall or anything else that seems interesting but you don't want to be caught dead taking a picture of.
This action is often made more convincing by wiggling the eyebrows or opening the mouth, to pretend you're trying to get a Snapchat filter to work.
The grindset is a contemporary ideology of self-exploitation disguised as strength, deeply tied to the aesthetics of the “sigma male” and to new digital forms of patriarchy. It promotes the idea that human worth depends on productivity, economic success, absolute emotional control, and the ability to work endlessly, turning vulnerability, rest, community, and tenderness into signs of weakness. Beneath its rhetoric of discipline and power often lies a profound inability to relate healthily to pain, fragility, and human interdependence.
“That’s the grindset, brother. While weak men sleep and complain, sigma males stay disciplined, work in silence, suppress emotions, and build power while everyone else wastes time chasing comfort.”